Sociopaths who posture as insightful and self-aware are some of the most dangerous predators around.
When I use the terms pseudo insightful and pseudo sensitive, I’m referring to the sociopath’s manipulative efforts to seem some combination of vulnerable, self-aware, sensitive and compassionate.
For some sociopaths this deception is conscious, while for others it is so seamlessly woven into their modus operandi as to feel (for them), at least in the moment, almost authentic.
Even the normal individual, low in sociopathic traits, may struggle to distinguish his deception from authenticity when finding himself “performing” in a mode in which he feels masterfully confident and comfortable—for instance, pitching a sale; or making a presentation, or speech.
But what factors make the sociopath’s “insight” and “sensitivity” pseudo versus authentic?
There is, first of all, the manipulative function of the sociopath’s pseudo sensitivity. Authentically insightful individuals use their insight and self-awareness not merely to better protect themselves and their interests, but also to better understand themselves and others.
Sociopaths, however, always wanting something from others, oriented as they are to wanting to take something from others, use their “pseudo” insight and self-awareness for exploitive purposes.
For instance, the sociopath’s interest isn’t to get to know and understand you better for purposes of increasing his depth of connection with you; rather, his interest to establish unobstructed access to you is about positioning himself to take something from you that he wants—whether you’re ready to offer it or not, and whether it’s in your best interest to offer it or not.
In other words, the sociopath is never interested in you; he is always, and only, interested in what he can take from you.
This applies also to the sociopath’s invitation to appreciate his pseudo display of vulnerability. This may take the form of his “startling sensitivity” and self-awareness. If he reads you correctly—as someone, say, who values vulnerability and substance—then he may regale you with “apparent” evidence of his capacity to be wounded; to manifest sensitive emotions; to position himself as someone who’s “in touch” with his feelings.
As always, how much he believes his performance in the moment (versus consciously recognizing it as bogus or manipulative) varies from sociopath to sociopath and from circumstance to circumstance.
Paradoxically, a more “self-aware” sociopath will recognize his fraudulence better than a less self-aware sociopath, who may be more prone to denial, self-delusion, and the belief that, at least temporarily, he really is the role he’s playing.
Regardless, sociopaths play the “self-aware,” “vulnerable” card (consciously or not) ultimately for grooming purposes—specifically, for purposes of softening your defenses and encouraging, coaxing out, your vulnerability.
This is because the less guarded, the more disarmed you are—in a word, the more vulnerable you are—the greater (the sociopath calculates) are his chances of taking from you what he wants.
Now let me apply some of these ideas to a hypothetical, real-life scenario: Let us say you are on a blind date with a very charismatic, charming sociopath. There is seemingly very intense chemistry. He watches you in a very flattering, lusting way, feasting his eyes on you all night. He tells you how attractive he finds you, that he’s mesmerized by you.
Now he isn’t necessarily lying. He could be lying, we know that, in which case his manipulation is that much more blatantly and manifestly sociopathic. But it’s also possible that he isn’t lying—that is, that he feels, in the moment, that what he’s telling you he feels is true; or, that he’s convinced himself that everything he’s telling you is true.
And so his sociopathy can’t necessarily be traced to his lying, because in this instance he may not perceive himself as lying, and, in a certain sense, he may not be lying. His sociopathy, rather, can more accurately be identified in his underlying, preexisting agenda which, in our hypothetical scenario, come hell or high water, is to “nail” you.
He made this his mission the moment he laid eyes on you and found you sexually attractive enough to make this his intention. He feels quite thrilled—perhaps even a little giddy and delighted—that you’ve proven attractive enough (in a sense, cooperative enough) to elicit his lust, which now enables him to pursue his agenda with you.
I don’t mean to suggest that this is the only agenda our hypothetical sociopath could be pursuing with you. It’s possible that he (or another sociopath) might play things differently, by approaching his interests with more or less patience; more or less calculated, disguised subterfuge.
And it’s possible that our sociopath, or a different sociopath, on this same first, blind date, might have an entirely different set of intentions, warranting a very different approach to meeting them. For instance, he or she may be a golddigging sociopath—a financial predator—less than a sexual exploiter.
However, this is what my hypothetical sociopath wants in this particular situation; accordingly, he’s going to pull out all the stops to land you in the “sack” or, one way or another, land himself in your pants.
Because all that matters—and in essence, what it always and only boils down to—is what he wants.
And so our sociopath, on meeting you and establishing his sexual interest, feels glad, elated, even excited that you bring something he wants. He may feel, beyond that, primitive gratitude that you haven’t disappointed him in this respect. Nothing, after all, could be more depresssing, more boring and less tolerable than, on his having met you, his discovering that, alas, you have nothing to give him that he wants.
Incidentally, this experience—his experience—of your uselessness elicits any number of possible reactions, including irritation, resentment, utter contempt, annoyance, and excruciating disappointment and boredom.
It is bad enough (for you) that you are only, and will never be more than, an object to the sociopath. However, for the sociopath, the fact that you are always only an object to him isn’t necessarily a problem; it is when your usefuleness as an object has run its course that the sociopath is most displeased and agitated, and when he is most likely to unmask himself as the cold, heartless person he is.
However, in our hypothetical scenario, as we’ve established, you do indeed have something he wants: he finds you gorgeous. And so in his relief, in his gladness, in his heady gratitude that you have something he wants—something that he can now can set about taking—a psychological transmutation occurs.
The sociopath’s gratitude, on discovering that you have something he wants, becomes primitively transmuted into a form of idealization—of you!
And in his primitive, corrupt idealization, the sociopath is prone to convincing himself, and you, of the sincerity of his ebulliant flattery and appreciation. So much so that when, as previously noted, he tells you he’s mesmerized by you, he may mean it, or think he means it, and he may seem and, indeed, be sincere when he says this.
But what mesmerizes him is you-the-object, not you-the-person. He is mesmerized not by the substantive you, but by his fantasy of what he imagines you will give him, or what he’ll soon coax from you or, if necessary, take from you.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors discussed.)
I’m heading off in a bit…..
Gotta run….
Checkin lates…..
🙂
Philomela,
I wanted to say that in many ways, I’m where you’re at with things now. I have questions like yours, and observations like yours, too. I also find it interesting that we’ve both chosen screen names from Greek mythology.
Just as background, I let my S-path go 3 years and 4 days ago. When I let him go, I did it while I still loved him, and wanted all of us to heal. I let him go once I realized that he was so disordered, there could never be any order (at least not any I could bring to him). At the time, I didn’t really know what S-paths and narcissists were.
I was about to figure it out. It would take another year before I realized just how many I had in my life, built it to every structure I’d ever constructed.
Now I’ve got three teams of them working against me, around the clock, in three different places on the planet (where my work and life have been based). And they’re all very happy, exceedingly pleased to be playing with what I’ve given them, and finding supporters among the gossips and haters who love to target me, too. And to normal people, I appear like the crazy, agitated, suspicious, (bad in every way) person.
I also hurt when I feel mistrusted, my natural inclination is to trust and be trusted. I want to give to others without having to think twice. Now I hold back, everything, and feel the weight of not being able to trust. Now I don’t even trust myself to determine what illusion and reality are, what my rights are. I have that pervasive feeling of fear, too. And I feel sick in my silence, having to put on the show of being normal when I know nothing is normal or right. I can’t talk about the reasons for my anger to normal people, because normal people will only see me as the problem, if I speak about the problem. I don’t know what’s normal or real anymore either, even though I use words like ‘normal’.
One thing I can say is that time alone can help, if you spend it taking care of yourself, giving yourself all the things you can to make yourself feel cared-for, loved, respected and, most of all, comfortable. I take one day a week now when I have no email, no phone calls, I clean the house completely the day before, put everything in order that needs ordering, I make all my food a day in advance so that I won’t even have to cook, and then I’m free to do whatever I feel like doing for that day. Most of the time I rest, I reinforce the idea that the outside world doesn’t matter to me so much as I think it does. And I pray, and read, and I try to find the answers and understanding that I seek. The big answers that have come to me tend to surface on those days, as have remarkable bouts of forgiveness and letting go. And my energy is renewed during that time. I have to go back to the struggles the day after, and often fall back into old, harmful ways of being, but those days in private contemplation and rest make a world of difference.
Too much time alone would be a failure and retreat, and amount to hiding out in fear, which you said you’re struggling not to do. I can say that too much time alone, when I’ve had the chance for it, did do harm. But the one day off a week has been the greatest gift I’ve ever given myself. Even if the world caught on fire on one of those days off, I doubt I’d care enough to give up my day for rest and reflection.
Like you, I struggle to trust my own judgment now, spending hours working out in writing and/or thought what must be right and wrong for me. We have the choice in this life to say ‘yes’ to some things, and ‘no’ to others, and it takes me soooo very long to reach a yes or no on anything.
Also, I think the Philomela of Greek myth is an important reference; thank you for reminding me of her story, and the extremes that our abusers will go to, to silence us.
Someone might cut out our tongues, to keep us from revealing their crimes, but there are ways to show the world the truth. I can only speak for myself, but thanks to the metaphor in Philomela’s story, I think I know now how I will have to get my truth out. I will weave a tapestry (not literally, but using what I have to work with), and tell my story to the world that way. If no one listens, and if there is no justice in the end, at least I won’t have given in to living in wounded, fearful, horrified silence with the hideous truths that I’ve discovered.
I think there must be a way for you, too, to not have to live ‘silenced in terror.’ I think there must be a metaphorical tapestry for you to weave, too, so that you can express your truths, and live with the measure of relief that could come with that.
In your posts, I get the idea that I see what you see, that these Spaths only ‘fix’ what they have to, in order to preserve their bottom-line values (they must feel OK, everything is a means to that end). Their impact on others is only considered as a means to narcissistic supply, not actually about whether or not their suppliers are OK. All changes, all solutions to ‘help the relationship’ are always illusions, because they aren’t in a relationship that’s about the feelings of two people.
Your posts (and Mike’s) are a good reminder to me that decent people (1) don’t use the ‘offense is the best defense’ tactic, and (2) they DO want to understand and care for the feelings of the person they’re supposed to be in a relationship with. If I sometimes can’t see my way through all of the confusion that they stir up, and if I sometimes can’t tell the difference between a ‘normal neurotic’ and an SPath, at least I know those two things are true now.
Thank you for reminding me of the Philomela story (in your choice of screen name). It’s a good lesson for a person (me) who feels she’s been brutalized into silence, after being brutalized on every other possible level first.
Sorry for the long post, there’s a lot I want to get out these days. Talking to people here is my only way to talk with people who can understand, and to learn from people who are struggling to understand the same kinds of things. anyway, I’ve appreciated your recent postings, and Mike’s too.
Psyche
Psyche
Camom,
I think it is hard to wrap our brain around so much of this because it is hard to concieve the lack of a moral compass.
Everything we do, we have to “answer to” our concscience. An S/P/N doesn’t have one. We know this intellectually, but emotionally it is still hard to grasp this concept. Having a concscience, motivates how we behave and what choices we make. If we do the “wrong” thing we know we have to face the consequence. Even if the consequence is just simply answering to ourselves.
An S/P/N doesn’t just lie, they are the lie. If you or I told someone : “I love you”. There is emotion behind those words.
The words are an expression of the feeling we have.
The distorted thinking process of an S/P/N believing what they say in the moment is not about FEELING it, in the same sense as we would. But what is behind those words is an unwavering belief in himself. He does become the performance. The illusion he creates. He believes the lie to the degree that he becomes one and the same with it.
It really is about his perception of the lie. If he percieves it to be true, in that moment it is his truth. The AGENDA behind the motivation to lie is always there, and very “real” to an S/P/N, and that drive is without any reasonable explanation. (that we can fully understand) Other than it is always self serving.
That is why they might deliver acadamy award winning performances at times. They don’t believe all their lies. But when they do, and they “take on” that persona, that is how they maneuver themselves into our lives to begin with. That is how they navigate themselves in this world.
The more I try and understand this disorder, the more questions I have. However from seeing it progress, in a young person, I am believing more and more that perception…What they percieve to be…..Has alot to do with trying to understand their “make up”.
And when you take away, the ability to feel love, the ability to recieve it, and compassion, empathy, concscience, moral reasoning, what really is left? An empty shell. Maybe they really do need us to survive. To feed off of?
Does any of this make any sense to you? It is always difficult for me to find the words to convey my thoughts, and observations, that make sense.
Hey EB,
Thank you for your reply! It was just the validation and understanding I needed at the moment. I wasn’t sure if I was clear..
.I loved your “his car isn’t running” example!!!- good for you on getting the judge to see it. It made me laugh out loud with recognition- I have some examples from my P of exactly the same thing- I will share them if I have time later-
but…. the bottom line is- Keep asking questions- Be aware of the natural tendency to fill in the blanks, assuming normalcy and shared reality with anyone- and Don’t let politeness, social graces, etc. be used to stop you from asking clarifying questions, and Tread with great caution and care (or run fast in the other direction) when interacting with anyone who refuses to give straight answers to direct questions or clarify and be specific about what they mean. The details matter!!!!
P’s use the smoke and mirrors of impression and innuendo and rely on the conversational filling in the blanks by others. It was when I started to push for specifics with the P that the final stage of really obviously abusive behavior started- until then it was always a feeling of my being crazy or off balance- that somehow my responses were “pathological” and it must be something wrong with me because I couldn’t point to anything specific- so to others he always seemed calm and nice and reasonable and even kind (and I seemed like a crazy person out of control and accusing) but in reality he was sticking the knife in me while making the knife appear to be some kind of gift- The end was terrible and (he was able to still convince others (those who didn’t want to know details) that I was really the perpetrator)I am still suffering the effects but at least I have something concrete that I can point to and hold onto when I begin to doubt myself and think that maybe he was right and it was me.
just wanted to correct one thing I said.
I said ‘all changes, all solutions ‘to help the relationship’ are always illusions, because they aren’t in a relationship that’s about the feelings of two people.”
What I should have said that they aren’t in a relationship that about caring for and nurturing the feelings of two people. S-paths, do care about our feelings, in as much as they can use them to groom us for exploitation. I know everyone here knows that, I just wanted to be more clear for clarity’s sake.
Psyche,
I don’t have the words to tell you how much you just gave to me in your reply. I am in tears reading it- tears for you -tears for myself- tears I need to cry- tears of mourning and healing and recognition and compassion for myself – for a brief moment in reading your reply to me I didn’t feel so alien and alone- Thank you!. Thank you for understanding what I wrote- Thank you for understanding my screen name- Thank you for sharing yourself and similar feelings with me….I often feel so alone and ashamed of the depth of the damage and pain and fear I feel in my internal experience and so afraid that I will never recover and cannot survive- and I feel so humiliated and ashamed of where I really am inside myself and so alone and afraid in what feels like my inability to heal it. Your response made me feel held with understanding and care and compassion-like a child held in safe protective arms… and so for this moment I feel safe enough to feel my pain and to cry- perhaps the tapestry weaving can finally begin…
Philomela
Great thread. EB, about asking the next question, I will remember that. It would be completeely foreign to me to do that, in the past. I would feel like I was forcing an issue, putting someone on the spot…etc. etc. etc. I have been well-trained.
We must remember also, that manipulators thrive on the liability, (to us) left by our own moral compass. To the extent that I am able to empathize, I will be maneavered by guilt. To the extent that I would rather trust than distrust, I will be maneaverd by self-doubt. To the extent that I wish to be an open book, I will be read, digested spit-out, and essentually closed. To the extent that I value honesty, I will be called, liar.
Eventually, the only thing we have is a judgement call, but nowadays I say, ” if in doubt, leave it out.” I will err on the side of my own self-preservation.
Philomela,
I often fear that I can’t survive, too. I fear that I’ll never thrive in this life. ‘My’ shame has run a devastating course through my personal and professional life, and it reaches to three continents. Of course, the shame I feel is really the shame of a scapegoat. All the S-paths have projected their psychological filth onto me, and I didn’t catch on until too late. They got away with too much, because I gave too much. I’m not doing that anymore, and I bet you’re not either. But they’re still abusing whoever they can.
If you feel shame about the depth of damage done, always remember who did the damage. When you feel fear, remember that Spaths love that they can make you feel it. Sometimes remembering that pisses me off enough to make me feel strong again.
Taking back my self-respect and my basic rights has proven very difficult, because I sometimes fail to convince myself that I deserve these things, and I often fail to even know what they are. Instead, I hear the voices of my abusers telling me that I’m wrong to feel what I feel, and think what I think. Those voices dominate still, which is why it takes me so long to weigh out what’s right and wrong for me.
But I think that when we know that the shame belongs to these shameful Spaths, and really know it in our souls, the outside world will have to begin to reflect the changes within us, assuming we survive. Things will have to change when our feelings change.
I hope your truth can be expressed some day; I think that as it comes out, however it comes out and however it becomes part of reality, you will be becoming the happy, healthy person you were meant to be.
Victims of spaths pay twice, in the coming and the going. But if we get our real selves back (us, minus all of our earlier weaknesses as scapegoats for s-paths), our stifled truths can become part of the fabric of reality, so maybe it’s worth the price? I can’t say yet for sure, because I’m not there. But I have hope for us, and learning to live in strength and self-respect seems like the only way to make some good come out of all this pain. Evil wants us to feel isolated, alone, ashamed, exhausted and fearful in our truths, I’m sure of that much, if not much else.
If it weren’t for your earlier comments, I’d be feeling pretty alone. Thank you, and thank you for letting me express all of this stuff. It’s just coming out of me lately, and I’m a little sorry for Love Fraud because you’re all having to see so much from me recently. I’m feeling a little crazy these days.
Psyche
Kim,
Just a quick comment. You’re a 100% right about ‘to the extent that I value honesty, I will be called a liar.’ That’s exactly how it works, in the f’d up world of sociopathic-narcissistic projection.
And I do think after spending so much time in one extreme (giving and trusting and suffering for another), we have to go to the other extreme to regain balance (the other extreme of shutting out anything that looks remotely sociopathic, narcissistic or simply abusive). I’m willing to err on the side of self-preservation now too, like never before.
Psyche
I think it’s very inappropriate to assume someones discomfort is more or less than anyone elses?